The Power of Joy
by adaon45
Summary: Based, like my other fics, on the Prydain chronicles. After leaving Caer Dathyl on his travels, Adaon returns to Taliesin and Arianllyn.
1. Leaving Home

_Disclaimer: Would that these were my characters, but they're not. They inspire me, though._

The Power of Joy

". . . with an eye made quiet by the power

Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,

We see into the life of things."

--William Wordsworth, "Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey"

Ch. 1: Leaving Home

Salt spray stinging his face, sea wind lifting his black hair, the young man at the ship's rail scanned the horizon as if to fix its boundaries with his gray eyes. But the late-winter, late-afternoon sky had no limits. Pearl-white, the edge of the clouds moved ever before him, at once beginning and end and, paradoxically, neither.

On another day, in another place, the same young man stood at the blacksmith's forge, mopping his sweat-stained, soot-stained brow with the back of a muscular arm. Then, seizing his hammer, he struck rhythmically at the molten iron on the anvil, willing its red-gold mass into shape.

He smiled ruefully as his finger slipped on the spinning potter's wheel. The vessel rising from the wet clay collapsed in on itself, and he seized it, kneaded it into a ball, and threw it back while pressing the treadle again with his foot.

He walked in a line spanning the field with the other men from the village, his hand reaching into the pouch slung from his shoulder to throw seeds on fresh-tilled spring soil. Some weeks later, he knelt in the same place, gently touching a sprout that had burst from the warm earth.

Taliesin missed his son.

He could not begrudge his only child the chance to do what he had long wished—travel the length of Prydain, not as a bard but as a student of various trades. As he explained to his father whenever Taliesin asked him to present himself for initiation to the Council of Bards, Adaon could not imagine becoming a poet if he did not first know how even the humblest inhabitants of Prydain lived. Wishing to extend his encyclopedic knowledge outside books, Adaon yearned moreover to become an artist in any way he could. Thus, he planned—with his usual daunting ambition—to learn weaving, smithing, and pottery, as well as the skills of farmer and fisherman. His zest for learning warmed his father's heart, and reminded him moreover of Adaon's mother, the female bard Cerys, who had insisted on becoming a wandering bard even if, to do so safely, she had to dress as a man. Yes, Adaon was similarly stubborn in his way, Taliesin thought fondly. While remaining the most dutiful of sons, the boy had inherited his mother's desire to explore uncharted territory. The Chief Bard of Prydain and a formidable scholar himself, Taliesin had never thought to pursue the kind of knowledge which his son sought to acquire, and he could only admire the originality and devotion of this unusual quest.

And yet it had been difficult for Taliesin to speed Adaon on his way. Sitting on this spring day in his favorite haunt, the book-lined Hall of Lore in the castle of Caer Dathyl, the Chief Bard realized that it had been almost two years since he had seen his son. He could neither wonder nor complain at the length of Adaon's absence; travel on foot—his son couldn't easily take a horse to some of the places he was going—was slow in Prydain. And what Adaon wished to accomplish could scarcely be crammed into a shorter span. Because it was so hard for news or letters to traverse the countryside, Taliesin had not even heard much from Adaon during those two years. True, around half a year after his son had left, a travelling peddler had delivered a wonderfully detailed letter, crammed in the smallest possible writing on several pieces of parchment, describing all that Adaon had done up to that point—sailing past the isle of Mona to the Northern Sea, and, at the time of writing, setting out nets in a fishing village. "I have been eating a lot of fish," he informed his father. It was hard to tell whether Adaon thought this a good or a bad thing. Taliesin longed to question his son further.

Taliesin sighed. There he was, back to confronting his own loneliness. Adaon had been away for short periods before this trip, at one point even fighting the dread Huntsmen of Annuvin with Prince Gwydion while his father hoped, paralyzed with fear, for his son's safe return. These relatively brief absences aside, though, Adaon had been Taliesin's sole companion after Cerys's death in childbirth when the boy was four. Cerys's newborn daughter had died with her, and father and son had bonded more closely over their shared, shattering loss. Before Cerys had miraculously entered his life—after many years during which Taliesin had been both wifeless and childless—he had grown used to being on his own, if somewhat wistful about his lack of family. Once Adaon left on his travels, however, Taliesin realized how accustomed he had become to fatherhood. He kept looking over his shoulder for his son, to call him in to dinner or instruct him in runes or harp-playing.

Around half a year before, however, he had at least received further word of Adaon's activities. A member of the Council of Bards made the lengthy voyage to the southeast of Prydain to visit family in the Free Commots, the area not governed by cantrev lords. When he returned, he gladdened Taliesin's heart by telling him excitedly about finding Adaon in a nearby village.

"My, but that young man gets around," the bard, Gwynallt, happily told the Chief Bard. "He doesn't stay in one place for long, though I gather everyone wants him to. At the time I saw him—in excellent health, you should know—he'd already served as apprentice to both a smith and a weaver. He told me he was working at the moment with a master potter. He's also gained quite a reputation as a healer, not that he told me much about it, too modest I suppose, but several villagers did. Seems he's done a great deal of good with his knowledge of healing herbs."

"They didn't know who he really was," Gwynallt continued, "until I got there. Hope you don't mind—Adaon seemed worried you'd be offended—but he generally doesn't tell folks whose son he is. Guess he's afraid they'll think him too high and mighty to live with the likes of them. Oh, from what they told me, they'd figured out he was gently born—well-spoken, and he plays the harp so beautifully—but they had no idea they'd been working alongside the son of the Chief Bard of Prydain. I hope he didn't mind they found out because of me, but actually they seemed even more taken with him than before."

"I tried," the bard went on, a trace of fond exasperation entering his voice, "to persuade him to come back with me, as he'd been away so long. He said he needed to stay a bit longer, then he'd work his way back to Caer Dathyl. A lovely lad, Taliesin—a man now, really—but he _does_ have a stubborn streak, doesn't he? He wasn't at all rude about it, but he wouldn't be budged from his plans. And that included waiting to take his bardic exams. Oh, I know _you've_ brought it up with him, but I thought it might come easier from me—not being his father, and all—so I tried to get him to agree to present himself for initiation upon his return. He just smiled that slow smile of his and told me ever so politely he's chosen to wait. Whatever for, Taliesin? He's a prodigy, just like his father and mother."

"I don't know exactly what he's waiting for," said Taliesin, smiling. "And I'm not sure he does either. But if he thinks he has to wait, I respect the decision. I doubt he's just doing what the young like to do, assuming he knows better than us older sorts. No, he has extraordinarily high standards, and he has not yet found a way of living up to them."

Gwynallt shook his head. "Well, you know him best. Certainly no one could hope for a finer son. I'm greedy, that's all—want him in our ranks, the sooner the better."

Now, gazing through the casement at the bright spring sky, Taliesin considered his son's complex personality. There were many who, like Gwynallt, thought Adaon almost too good to be true, a model of the wise, brave, cultured young warrior—and handsome to boot—that was the ideal of manhood in his culture. Taliesin knew better. His son was a human being like any other, with vulnerabilities as well as virtues. As far as his father was concerned, though, Adaon's humanity made him more, rather than less, admirable. True, Adaon was gifted with above-average intelligence, courage, and gentleness. But it was the dedication with which he cultivated these inherent talents that made him extraordinary. And, again, complicated.

Adaon was like his parents in many ways. Even-tempered, musical, and creative, he took keen pleasure in the glories most people overlooked—the beauties of nature, the delights of love and friendship. He had a fierce hunger for knowledge and the patience and devotion to seek it wherever it could be found. And Adaon shared his parents' sense of humor, though he was more serious, finally, than either of them. Like Taliesin, Cerys had been much given to wry teasing. Adaon knew how to laugh—he was no prig—but there was a gravity in his smile, not the gravity of someone lacking a sense of fun, but an intensity of joy that held him concentrated and utterly absorbed. Yes, joy—that was the word Taliesin associated most with his son, although the quality of the joy had changed over time.

In his first years Adaon had been a merry little boy, laughing frequently and delightedly. How he had loved Cerys! Taliesin had always had a strong bond with Adaon, but the relationship of mother and son was special, and Taliesin often smiled to see them giggling as they played together. Unlike many mothers of her rank, Cerys did not farm out to a nurse the mundane chores of child-rearing. A kindly, comfortable old woman named Banwen helped take care of Adaon when his mother was particularly busy with her scholarly work, but Cerys insisted on doing much of what needed to be done for her son, even the more unglamorous tasks. In a way unusual for fathers of his rank, Taliesin helped out as best he could. And so, blessedly, both he and Adaon had memories of Cerys in the role of mother that they would otherwise have lacked. When Cerys had died, Adaon had understandably been much affected. He was no longer the merry toddler, but a more serious child, one made aware all too early of the fragility of happiness. Fortunately, he did not become truly insecure—his father's watchful care prevented that—but a new depth to Adaon's natural joyfulness made him seem older than his years. And he developed, too, a protectiveness toward his father that mirrored his father's toward him. It was as if each of the remaining, bereaved members of the family always sought to anticipate the other's needs.

Of course—notwithstanding his unusual maturity—Adaon had gone through the normal stages of childhood. He'd had his share of toddler tantrums, wilful "won't"s, mischievousness, and minor but still exasperating naughtiness. (Taliesin winced as he remembered the time three-year-old Adaon had happily shredded sheets of parchment on which his father had written his latest poems.) But, as he grew, the boy sometimes seemed to wish to please his father too much, although Taliesin saw in his son's anxious perfectionism—the same perfectionism that made him even now delay his bardic exams—the legacy of the two ambitious intellectuals who had given him life.

Adaon's personality revealed its fullest—and as far as his father was concerned, most lovable—complexity when his unusually strong desire to do what he thought right battled with his equally strong desire to please Taliesin. Taliesin remembered one such day.

Adaon had been almost eleven years old. His father, who had sent him on the errand of delivering a book to a bard who lived on the other side of the castle, was growing anxious at his ordinarily reliable son's slow return. Taliesin was just about to leave his study to search for the boy when another bard, Enlli, appeared at the door holding Adaon's hand.

Enlli, one of Cerys's biggest supporters, had been devastated when she died. A kindly, round-faced man whose flyaway gray hair grew increasingly wispy with age, Enlli considered himself Adaon's honorary uncle. On this day, the bard's normally cheerful face looked concerned, and he seemed to wish to speak but was holding himself back, as if to allow Adaon to explain first. Taliesin had little time to notice all this, however, because when he saw Adaon he leaped from his seat in alarm. The boy was definitely the worse for wear. His clothes torn and dirty, he sported a black eye and a rapidly swelling injured lip that had bled freely all over his jacket.

"Adaon!" Taliesin cried. "What happened?"

Adaon did not immediately answer. He looked at the floor, tracing a circle with his toe. When he looked up his expression blended embarrassment and an odd defiance. Enlli remained silent.

Finally Adaon said, "I was in a fight."

No surprises there, Taliesin thought. "With whom?" he asked.

"Garth," Adaon replied. Garth, a boy of Adaon's age, was the son of a high-up noble at King Math's court. He was not a bad lad, but he had a tendency to lord it over others because of his father's rank. Taliesin feared that if he were not cured of his arrogance he could become a terrible bully.

At this point Enlli, unable to restrain himself any longer, spoke up. "He wasn't fighting with one boy, Taliesin," he pointed out, "four of them were leaping on him at once. It's lucky I fished him out of the fray when I did."

Taliesin looked inquiringly at Adaon, who reddened slightly. "How," Taliesin asked gently, "did you get in a fight with four boys?"

"I started it," said Adaon with that strange blend of shame and defiance. He looked at his father. "I know you've told me not to get into fights, and especially not to start them. You can punish me if you want," he offered, in a tone that implied his father would be mistaken to do so but was entitled to his own opinion.

Taliesin kept himself from smiling. "It would seem," he pointed out, "that you've been punished quite enough already." And more harshly than I would ever do, he thought. Taliesin never raised a hand against his son, but then again the most effective punishment for Adaon was not to allow him to read before going to bed. Indeed, in the past year or so, simply a frown from the father he adored seemed to do the trick.

Enlli, again, could not restrain himself. "I didn't see the beginning of the fight," he said, "but I figured out what happened. Those four had been mocking Annest."

Annest, the sweet and affectionate six-year-old daughter of a gardener at Caer Dathyl, was what the world called an idiot. Taliesin preferred to reserve that term for those who did not use the wits they had been given. In contrast to such genuine idiots, Annest possessed the matchless gift of a kindly heart. People were generally quite fond of her, with her sunny curls and laughing, slanting eyes, but she was undeniably more vulnerable than other children to bullying.

"Her mother must have lost sight of her," Enlli explained. "She found Annest just as I was breaking up the fight. The child was crying bitterly. From what she said I gathered the four boys, led by Garth, had been jeering at her."

Adaon forgot to be reticent. "They called her stupid and ugly," he said angrily. "And they did something even worse." He looked down again at his feet, embarrassed.

"What was it?" Taliesin asked.

Adaon looked up, his gray eyes troubled. "They were pulling up her skirt," he said. "At least, Garth was. I trounced him," he said with some satisfaction.

Taliesin sighed. He would have to have a word with Garth's father, not a task to which he looked forward. Right now, though, he addressed his son. "As you know," he said, with as much sternness as he could muster, "I do not approve of fighting, and usually there are ways of avoiding it. I can understand your wanting to help Annest, but did you ask Garth to stop before you started fighting?" All right, he said to himself, it probably wouldn't have done much good, but one always had to try.

"No-o-o," Adaon admitted, scuffing the floor again with a toe. "Or, at least, I didn't ask him _first_. I told him to stop while I was jumping on him," he explained.

Taliesin could not help himself. He laughed. Enlli chuckled too. Adaon looked affronted.

"I'm sorry," Taliesin said, putting a halt to his mirth. "It's just that—well, I doubt someone can listen to you very well while you're jumping on him." He sighed again. "Fighting is not the best way of resolving things. But it is also important to stop bullying, and what those boys were doing to Annest was very wrong. I think," he concluded, "your mother would have been proud of you for protecting that child. I imagine," he added ruefully, "she'd have tried to trounce all four of those boys at once too."

Adaon now seemed confused. "You mean what I did wasn't wrong? But I broke your rules. Even though I'd do it again if I saw something like that," he concluded, looking thoroughly bewildered at his own lack of logic.

How to explain this, Taliesin thought. "Try to work things out without fighting," he finally told his son. Especially when it's four against one, he added privately. "But prevent cruelty whenever you can. If you think about it," he smiled, "it doesn't really teach people not to be cruel if you hit them, does it?"

That last point seemed to make an impression on Adaon. As Taliesin picked up a weighty volume and prepared to start his day's reading, he remembered that, in his teenage years, his son had not been nearly so ready to use his fists as most boys. And, although he learned the requisite swordmanship and other battle skills as he grew up, like his father Adaon would always rather read a good book.

The next morning, Taliesin rode out to the peaceful spot, some distance from Caer Dathyl, where Cerys and her baby were buried. Tethering his horse to a tree, he knelt by her burial mound and rested his forehead against one of its white boulders. He had brought some early spring flowers which he scattered gently over the stones.

He visited her regularly, even though he did not need to be near her earthly remains to feel close to her. Once, newly bereaved and racked with guilt over his unwitting role in Cerys's death, he had felt, with absolute certainty, her comforting spirit in the room beside him. He had never again had so vivid a sense of her presence, but then he no longer needed to. Reminded of the truth of her dying words—"I will always be with you"—he had been content to be aware of her in less spectacular, but still immensely consoling, ways. Sometimes, indeed, it seemed as if her hand were hovering over his shoulder while he read. So, during their marriage, had each often come up behind the other absorbed in study and offered a quick embrace. Feeling the flutter of her presence that morning, he traveled to this beautiful spot from which he could see the white towers of Caer Dathyl sparkling in the far distance.

"You would be so proud of him, Cerys," he murmured, speaking of their son. He smiled. "What am I saying? You _are_ proud of him, doubtless."

He laid his hand on the white stone in farewell and, untethering his horse, mounted again and rode back to the castle. As he went, he thought back to the scene he had remembered the day before, in which Adaon had gone charging to Annest's aid. He could see the pattern in his son's life, in another episode, some years later, in which Adaon, under Prince Gwydion's command, had fought the Huntsmen of Annuvin and a cantrev lord seduced by Arawn's promises of power. It had been Adaon's first major battle, and his reactions had been similar to the bewildering mixed feelings he had had after fighting on Annest's behalf. In both episodes, the desire to right the outrage perpetrated on the vulnerable had mingled confusingly with uncertainty about the best means of combatting evil.

At the time he rode with Lord Gwydion Adaon had not been a complete novice in battle. He had already sallied forth on several occasions with forces that sought to control the depredations of outlaws in the northern hill countries. Fortunately, the warriors from Caer Dathyl had achieved their ends without much harm on either side, and at the time he prepared to fight the Huntsmen Adaon still had a certain starry-eyed idealism about the glories of warfare, an idealism reinforced by the countless battle lays he had read. Taliesin, well aware of the dangers of fighting Huntsmen—who had the nasty habit of becoming stronger as a group when one of their number was killed—was sick with anxiety following his son's departure. When, after an agonizingly long absence, Adaon returned safely with Gwydion and most of the warriors from Caer Dathyl, Taliesin had been weak-kneed with relief. Still, he had noted that Adaon, no longer flushed with enthusiasm, was markedly subdued. In the days that followed his return, his father tried gently to pierce his son's reserve, but his attempts met with a taciturnity that verged, most unusually for Adaon, on rudeness. Wisely, Taliesin did not press the matter but waited patiently, if anxiously. Finally, around a week after Adaon's return, Prince Gwydion appeared at the door of Taliesin's study.

Given that hereditary monarchy did not guarantee wise or just rulers, Taliesin was infinitely grateful he owed allegiance to the House of Don. Both King Math and his nephew Gwydion were the kind of royalty to whom one gladly paid homage. Since the Sons of Don had arrived in Prydain years ago from the Summer Country, they had taken upon themselves the task not only of providing a shield for their subjects against the Death-Lord but seeking tirelessly to bring about a lasting peace. These strenuous, and often seemingly futile, efforts had taken their toll on the members of the royal house. As aged King Math grew increasingly frailer, Gwydion, his war leader, bore the brunt of the ever-increasing responsibility to reign in the greed and violence both of Arawn and of the cantrev lords he drew to his side. Whenever, in fact, Taliesin saw Gwydion he felt a strange type of heartache.

It was not that Gwydion was bowed by the weight of his worries. His upright bearing, coupled with his lean figure and shaggy gray head, always reminded Taliesin of a bold and sagacious wolf. But the man was surrounded by an aura not so much of loneliness as of something even more poignant: an invincible, impenetrable aloneness. Perhaps there was loneliness—Taliesin remembered the wistful look in Gwydion's eye when he attended the Chief Bard's wedding—but the overpowering impression one received from the Prince of Don was that, though he scorned no one's help, in an emotional sense he was a man apart. Unlike King Math, whose wife had died long ago, Gwydion had never wed, a surprising choice for an heir to the throne of a king who himself had no children. If there were passions in Gwydion's past or present, they were, like the Prince's inner life itself, veiled by an inviolable privacy. But Taliesin always sensed that the true life-partner of the Prince of Don was his quest to defeat Arawn, and that all else took second place to this overwhelming and perhaps impossible goal.

When Gwydion, looking the lone wolf as usual, appeared at Taliesin's door, the Chief Bard bowed deeply and gestured him to a seat. Settling himself at the table where Taliesin sat, the prince smiled wearily but warmly nonetheless.

"I thought, my friend," he told Taliesin, "you might like to know how your son bore himself under my command." He smiled again. "He is a remarkable young man, as you doubtless know, though you have not judged him, as I have, in battle. He is a bold and skillful swordsman, though that was not what made him most valuable to me. It is his courage," he said simply, "that sets him apart."

"When we rode against the Huntsmen and the cantrev men," Gwydion went on, "your son was at the forefront of the attack. Without being rash—as the young so often are—he nevertheless went without hesitation where others might think twice of going. I myself was concerned when I saw him charge right into a brace of Huntsmen." He paused, seeing Taliesin blanch. "I am sorry to harrow you," the Prince continued gently, "but for several moments I feared we would lose him. Nonetheless, he fought free of the Huntsmen and somehow managed to drive them back. Perhaps," he smiled, "even they were startled to see your son galloping toward them with a great cry of battle. He fought," Gwydion continued, "with all the ardor of an avenging spirit. I have the distinct impression that he prizes peace more highly than war. It is, however, this very sentiment that drove him so vehemently against the Huntsmen. You see," he said gravely, "the day before we met them in battle we passed a village the Huntsmen had despoiled."

"They had done their worst, " Gwydion went on, a terrible light entering his green eyes, "and you know what that means for Huntsmen. They had, of course, not spared the aged, or the women and children. They had violated the women before slaying them, and had even thus outraged some of the children." He looked steadily at Taliesin. "Your son was the first to offer to bury the dead, who had been aboveground nearly a week. He gave a dignified burial to all he could, even as those of his comrades who could be persuaded to assist gagged from the stench. I saw his face," he concluded softly, "while he was burying one of the children. It is a wondrous thing to have a so great a heart, even if in this world it is destined often to be wounded."

"I would not," Gwydion said, rising, "be surprised if he has not yet spoken of any of this. Give him time. I feel sure he will come to you."

Indeed, the very next day Adaon stood in the doorway of Taliesin's study. When his father urged him to enter, the young man took a seat near his father and looked him straight in the eye.

"Forgive me," Adaon said, "for being so surly the last few days."

"You need not ask my forgiveness," Taliesin said gently. "I spoke yesterday with Lord Gwydion. He told me what you saw on your way to battle."

Adaon shook his head. "It was horrible, Father," he murmured. "More horrible than I could have imagined. The battle was dreadful too. It wasn't glorious at all."

"It never is, my son," Taliesin said softly.

"I guess I didn't really know that, even though I'd fought before," Adaon continued. "Some of the men fighting for their cantrev lord were so young, Father. It wasn't as if they had chosen to serve Arawn—that was the choice of the lord to whom they'd sworn allegiance. They looked so confused. Thank goodness I did not slay any, though," he smiled ruefully, "several tried to slay me. Not to mention the Huntsmen." He noticed Taliesin's sudden pallor and fell silent. When he spoke again, he looked closely at his father, as if hoping, but not sure, he would understand.

"I really need to go away now," he said. "You know I'd been planning to even before I went with Lord Gwydion. I've spoken to him as well about my plans, because I wasn't sure if he'd need me again anytime soon. He's not sure either, but he wants me to do first what I have to." He spread his hands before him on the table, gazing at them as if seeing them for the first time. "I have to find another way of using these hands, Father," he said finally. "I have to create with them, rather than destroy—at least, as much as I can, with Arawn reaching for our throats. But I need to find, and do, the work of peace."

Taliesin opened his mouth, then shut it again. Adaon regarded him searchingly. Then he smiled, a broad and brilliant smile that lit his hitherto somber gray eyes.

"Father," he said, laughter lurking in his words, "you're giving me The Look again."

"The Look?" Taliesin queried innocently, although he, too, was beginning to smile.

"Yes," Adaon replied. "The Look. The one you get when you're about to urge me to take my bardic exams."

Taliesin smile turned rueful. "In my defense, I did not go on to say what I started out to."

"No," Adaon laughed, "You didn't." He sighed, serious again. "You do understand, Father, don't you, why I have to learn other things first?"

"I think I do," Taliesin replied. "In any event, I, like Lord Gwydion, want you to listen to what your heart tells you." He stopped, remembering what Gwydion had said about Adaon's heart. "Do as you think best, with my blessing."

And so Adaon had left. As he arrived back at Caer Dathyl after his visit to Cerys's grave, Taliesin thought that perhaps soon his son would stand, as his father did now, before these white gates. "When shall we have him back, Cerys?" he wondered. "I hope it will be shortly."


	2. The Way Back

Ch.2: The Way Back

The green-gold leaves of early spring crowned the trees as the young man, a pack on his back, walked the open countryside. When he reached a small grove at the top of a hill, he stopped and sat down, settling himself with his back against a tree. Opening his pack, he took out a meal of bread, cheese, and some dried apple, and, beginning to eat, contemplated the vista before him that lay bathed in the glow of late afternoon.

At the rate he was travelling, Adaon thought, he would reach Caer Dathyl in a around a week. He loved the freedom of striding in the open air, but the closer he came to home the more impatient he grew with the time this trip was taking him. Strange, to have been away for so long, and only now—near journey's end—to feel such an urgent need for his travels to be over.

Though he could not realize this, Adaon was close to the spot where, many years before, his mother Cerys had sat eating her lunch while deciding to end her stint as a wandering bard. Like him, she was drawn to the great castle in the north, and, like him, was eager to see Taliesin once she reached Caer Dathyl. Of course, the reasons why she wanted to see Taliesin were different from his, but, for both, the Chief Bard embodied the meaning of home.

Adaon remembered the morning he had left Caer Dathyl nearly two years ago. He had appeared at the door of his father's study to find Taliesin reading near the window. In the instant before the Chief Bard noticed he was there, Adaon had time to realize how much older his father was looking. Adaon had not truly noticed before, but Taliesin's face seemed more deeply lined, his hair—silver, in Adaon's memories of his boyhood—whiter now than ever. For just that instant, sitting at the window, he seemed infinitely lonely, and Adaon felt a pang at the thought of leaving him. And, stronger than guilt, his enormous love for his father rose within him, temporarily blurring his eyes, at the sight of this solitary figure.

Given his surge of emotion, Adaon was grateful for ritual. It was a custom in Prydain for children about to leave on a long journey to ask their parents to invoke the blessing of the Sun upon their travels, and Adaon dropped to one knee before his father. Taliesin rose, gently placing his hands on his son's dark head. For a moment he was silent, as if measuring his words. Then he spoke.

"May the Source of Light accompany you on your journey, and lead you to the places you need to find," he said, raising and embracing his son. "Travel and return safely. I feel sure you will make the fullest use of your opportunities."

"I hope not to disappoint you, Father," Adaon had replied.

Taliesin sighed, his gray eyes resting on his son with fond exasperation. "Adaon," he said, shaking his head, "You have always feared to disappoint me, no matter how often I have assured you there is little chance you ever will."

Adaon hesitated, as if about to say something. Then, apparently making up his mind, he spoke. "I am afraid I already have disappointed you, Father, by delaying my bardic exams."

Adaon was not expecting Taliesin to look relieved upon hearing these words, but he did. "I am glad," he said, smiling, "you have finally brought that thought into the open, Adaon. It has, for some time, been the source of unspoken tension between us. I ought to have addressed the subject myself, but I am glad you are doing so now, before you leave on such a lengthy journey." He placed both hands on his son's shoulders, looking in his eyes. "You have never disappointed me," he said firmly. "If I have been impatient about your exams, it is not a judgement of your choice so much as it is a sign of how I yearn to see your achievements properly recognized, as they would be were you to appear before the Council. Take my impatience as a father's pride rather than as a criticism." He smiled again, this time a bit ruefully. "Knowing how proud I am of you—not to mention my eagerness to count you in our ranks—I fear I shall forget myself and bring the matter up again. Forgive my importunity! Be assured I respect your judgement. You will know best when you are ready to take the exams."

In answer, Adaon flung his arms around his father in such a bear hug that the Chief Bard was temporarily winded. Both of them laughed before Adaon finally picked up his pack and went his way.

And now he was about to see his father again. But his father was not the only one whose face he longed to behold. And here, though again he did not know it, he had something in common with his mother, who had realized she loved Taliesin only once she was absent from him.

For Adaon, too, had been increasingly pursued by the thought of someone from Caer Dathyl, someone for whom his earlier fondness was now fanning into a passion that drove him back to the castle as fast as he could go.

It was Arianllyn.

Why, Adaon wondered, had he not known before? Perhaps it had been the longstanding desire of the two young people for their widowed parents to wed and make them brother and sister. In the time they had known each other—first when Arianllyn had visited Caer Dathyl, and then when she had moved to the castle shortly before his departure—they had fallen into an easy comradeship resembling the friendship often found between siblings. Even after they realized their parents were not going to wed, Adaon and Arianllyn had been so comfortable with this definition of their bond that they had not sought to alter it. But the relationship had changed now, at least for Adaon.

Perhaps he discovered the truth of his feelings about Arianllyn even as, on his travels, he discovered anew the beauty of the world. He had always possessed an extraordinary sensitivity to his surroundings, but, as he wandered the length of Prydain, this perception deepened, as did his insight—again, already great—into the hidden meanings of things. Thus, the further he roamed, the more did the veils with which everyday custom muffles life's glories fall away and allow him to enter a space of pure, profound happiness. He quickly came to love the sea, and whether on shore or shipboard felt an intense, concentrated joy when gazing at the pearly horizon above the white-capped waves. He felt the same joy in that instant at the potter's wheel when the vessel just emerges from the clay. He felt such joy when, kneeling at a riverbank to refill his flask, he lifted out a pebble from the bottom and marvelled at its smooth, water-worn shape. And, increasingly, he felt the deepest power of joy when thoughts of Arianllyn wove themselves into and around his sense of these wonders. More and more her face insinuated itself between himself and the potter's wheel, or the loom where he strove to learn the skills at which she excelled. He recalled the strands of auburn hair that escaped her braid, her wry humor, the way her green eyes fixed themselves with complete mindfulness on whatever she was doing.

Of course, the more he became aware of his love for Arianllyn, the more his new-found tranquility was replaced by the banked flames of frustrated desire. All around him young couples courted, plighted their troth, and wed, so that he spent a number of nights uncomfortably aware of his distance from his beloved. Fortunately, by that time the moment fast approached for his departure to Caer Dathyl. And yet, not so fortunately, he was now tormented by doubts that Arianllyn would not feel for him what he felt for her, or that she had, in all this time, even wed. She was beautiful and talented enough to attract many suitors. For all he knew, he would return and find her inaccessible.

Thinking of this, he quickly got up from his seat beneath the tree and, noting the declining sun, started walking north as fast as humanly possible.

Even as his son hurried purposefully back to Caer Dathyl, Taliesin sat in his study in the late afternoon light. A servant brought him a letter, and he nearly leaped from his seat when he recognized the handwriting that inscribed his name. Opening it swiftly, he read:

_Father—I have finally found someone travelling to Caer Dathyl on horseback, and thus more likely to arrive before I do. He swears he will make sure you get this. By the time you receive it, I should be a week or so behind him. I am well, and eager to see you again. _

_Adaon_

After reading this missive, Taliesin was understandably too excited to concentrate on reading again. As he paced the study, wishing that a week would melt away and bring his son to his door, he realized that there was someone else who—unless he were greatly mistaken—would welcome the news of Adaon's imminent homecoming. Smiling, he left the room.

Arianllyn Daughter of Arianwen took her needle from the cushion in her workbasket. The western sunlight of late afternoon poured in the window as she and her mother sat in their chambers at Caer Dathyl. Arianllyn, whose reputation as a weaver was already spreading beyond the castle, had left her loom for the day and was, like Arianwen, settling down to some needlework. Like her weaving, Arianllyn's embroidery was both exquisite and unusual. At the moment she was making a wall hanging that, instead of depicting the usual warriors or royalty, was luminous with a scene that had sprung from her own imagination. Against a brilliantly colored background, small human figures wove in and out of a landscape of jewel-like flowers and trees in an elaborate, graceful dance celebrating the coming of spring. Over all shone a dazzling sun on which Arianllyn was putting the finishing touches.

"Mother, may I have the gold thread?" she asked Arianwen, who handed it to her. Like Arianllyn, Arianwen was small-boned and slender, with auburn hair which, in her case, was brushed with gray at the temples. Her eyes, blue rather than green like her daughter's, rested affectionately on her intently sewing child. Child, thought Arianwen disbelievingly, she's a child no longer. She's twenty now, ready to leave the nest.

Out loud she asked "Young Llawdden is paying you much attention these days, isn't he?"

Arianllyn shrugged noncommitally. "I guess he is," she replied, looking down at her sewing.

Arianwen gazed shrewdly at her daughter. "Do you like Llawdden any more than you did Terwyn? Or Rhodri?" She referred to her daughter's last two suitors.

"Oh, mother," said Arianllyn, looking up, smiling. "Do we need to talk about the young men who buzz around me?"

"We do," announced Arianwen firmly, "if they have any intention of asking you to wed."

"Llawdden hasn't gotten there yet," explained Arianllyn, "and if I'm lucky—and make my own feelings clear—he won't."

"So you don't care for him?" asked Arianwen.

Arianllyn sighed. "He's a pleasant young man," she said. "But I can't imagine falling in love with him, much less wedding him."

"So," asked Arianwen, "is there no one to whom you can give your heart?"

"No one here," replied Arianllyn, meeting her mother's eyes with a slightly defiant look.

"Ah," said Arianwen. She put down her sewing and regarded Arianllyn. "So that's it, then. No one but someone else, if you know what I mean. Or perhaps I should say, _who_ I mean."

Arianllyn did not reply. Arianwen continued.

"He's been gone for almost two years," she said conversationally. "Do we even know he's coming back? And if he does, when will that be? And how does he feel about you, anyway, especially if he's been away so long?" Arianllyn looked indignant. "I'm sorry if I'm prying, but I have to. That's what mothers do. They're the ones with the enviable task of keeping their heads on their shoulders while their daughters are ruled by their hearts."

Arianllyn opened her mouth, but quickly shut it again. She began to laugh. "Oh, mother, I can't be too angry. I know you care. And I've asked myself the same questions you have. I wish," she mused, "I knew the answers."

"How long have you felt this way about him?" Arianwen asked quietly. "I wasn't sure if you did before he left."

"I was terribly worried when he went off to fight those Huntsmen," Arianllyn responded thoughtfully. "But I didn't truly know my heart at that point. We always seemed so—well, natural together, not like people in love at all. More like—"

"Brother and sister?" queried her mother. Arianllyn blushed.

"We did know, you see," Arianwen explained, as her daughter reddened still further. "Taliesin and I, that is. We knew you two wanted _us_ to wed. We thought it quite sweet," she concluded.

"Did you hear us talking in the garden?" asked Arianllyn, once her face was a bit less pink.

"Oh, you mean that time both of you were around fifteen or so, and you were saying how wonderful it would be if Taliesin and I fell in love?" Arianwen inquired. "Yes, we heard the tail end of that conversation. As I said, we thought it very considerate of the pair of you to desire our happiness." A smile played around the corners of her mouth. "We were sorry we couldn't oblige. We're fond of each other, but not in that way. Of course," she went on, "we had other things on our minds. Could you guess?"

Arianllyn looked knowingly at her mother. "I thought there was a conspiracy afoot. You two wanted us to fall in love, didn't you?"

"Ah, yes," said Arianwen. "You did figure it out. We tried not to be too obvious. I mean, less obvious than you two were about us." She chuckled at the once-again embarrassed expression on Arianllyn's face. Then Arianwen turned sober. "Well, my dearest dream has come true, at least in regards to you. What about _him_, I wonder?"

"Mother, you won't scheme, will you?" asked Arianllyn worriedly. "I mean, you won't speak to Taliesin about getting us together?"

"Of course not," declared Arianwen smiling. "What do you take me for? A meddling mother?" She and Arianllyn laughed again. "But really, Arianllyn, I don't want you to get hurt. Oh, I know," she went on resignedly, "I can't prevent that any more than I can prevent you from breathing. Love is a strange game, and one never knows whether all who play it will win. But I don't know," she frowned slightly, "whether I'm so wild now to see you two together as I was back then. He's a fine young man, of course, but his going away for so long, working at all sorts of trades . . . And what is this, anyway, about his not taking bardic exams when everyone knows how brilliant he is?"

Noting her daughter's mutinous air, Arianwen jumped in before Arianllyn could respond. "Very well," she said. "We shall give young Adaon the benefit of the doubt, at least as long as he shows up again soon. _Then_ we shall see. And no," she quickly added, "you don't have to worry about my saying, or doing, a thing. It's all up to you—and to him."

They went back to their sewing. As they were about to break for dinner, a knock came at the door. Both women looked startled to see Taliesin, as if he were a spirit each had conjured herself.

"Greetings," he said. He noticed their surprised expressions. "Forgive me for intruding. But I have news that I think you will both welcome."

"What is it?" asked Arianllyn, her eyes intent on the Chief Bard's face.

"Adaon is coming home soon," he announced. Arianwen drew her breath sharply, then glanced at her daughter. Arianllyn had gone first deep red, then white. Her mother might have feared she would faint were she not certain Arianllyn was scarcely the swooning type. Moreover, both redness and pallor were swiftly followed on her daughter's face by radiant joy. Taliesin saw the young woman's reaction, and his eyes moved quickly to Arianwen's. She nodded slightly, then dropped her eyes to her needlework.

"How delightful," she said brightly. "Arianllyn, you will be glad to see your friend again, I know." To her credit, she placed no undue emphasis upon the word "friend." "Thank you for bringing us the news, Taliesin." As he turned to exit, she opened the door and followed him into the corridor.

"I can't talk now," she whispered, "I promised Arianllyn not to interfere. But we need to confer. I'll drop by tomorrow morning."

The next morning, sure enough, Arianwen appeared at Taliesin's door and, at his invitation, took a seat at the table across from him.

"I'm afraid I got Arianllyn's suspicions up when I followed you into the corridor last night," she said. "She doesn't think it possible for me not to meddle."

"So it's true, then?" Taliesin asked. "She loves him?"

"Oh yes," replied Arianwen. "At least, now she knows she does. I think she loved him all along. If we're lucky, he's figuring out the same thing about her. Has he said anything?" she queried hopefully.

Taliesin shook his head. "I fear I have received little news of him all this time. All I know is that he should arrive in around a week."

Arianwen nodded. "We'll see, then." She sighed. "I don't mind telling you I'm worried for my daughter. It would go hard on her if he didn't love her, not that it would be his fault," she admitted, her obviously grudging tone contradicting her tolerant words.

She caught Taliesin's smile and laughed. "Oh, I know. We _are_ partial to our children, aren't we? We give short shrift to anything, or anyone, that causes them pain."

She looked at Taliesin again. "I must confess," she said slowly, "that last night I found myself saying some hard things about your son." Taliesin raised an eyebrow. "Oh, don't be offended, my friend. It's mother talk, again—wanting the best for my child. It's not that I truly meant any of it. But I did find myself wondering aloud why he's been away for so long, and why he's been working at common trades, and why he hasn't yet taken his bardic exams."

"Ah," murmured Taliesin. "the bardic exams again He has gotten quite an earful from us all about those."

"Oh, I've told you not to worry," Arianwen continued. "I know he's as fine a catch—if you'll pardon the crude maternal expression—as anyone could wish for her daughter. He's better, even—so brave and gentle and learned. Will you forgive me for saying he's almost too good to be true? The most fretful mothers—of whom I hope I am not one—might actually prefer someone less high-minded, less perfect." She saw Taliesin about to speak, and went on. "Oh, I know—or you know better than I—he's not perfect. But he does remind me of people who seem to be, like Lord Gwydion. And our prince has been wed to his duty too closely to seek the happiness of hearth and home. Still," a smile lit her face, "if I'm concerned about what it's like for my daughter to wed someone extraordinary, I need only remember that your dear wife did very well by you."

"And I by her," said Taliesin. "Remember, _she_ was extraordinary—as is your daughter, and yourself. Arianllyn and Adaon are well matched."

"Let us hope _they_ think so!" declared Arianwen fervently. "When did you say your son is coming back?"

That same morning Arianllyn sat on the battlements of Caer Dathyl, regarding the patchwork of farms and green countryside before her. It was good she had a head for heights, and could thus gain a sense of the greater world she had not had much chance to explore. She recalled that Adaon's mother had dressed as a man so she could pass as a wandering bard, and so had experienced a freedom otherwise denied women of gentle birth. What would it be like to follow in Cerys's footsteps, Arianllyn wondered? Perhaps, though, she herself could still see the world at Adaon's side.

But like him—though she could not know it—she was beset with doubts. He had been away two years and was splendidly handsome. Surely he had met some woman who had fallen for him—and he for her? Still, she hadn't heard anything about him coming back accompanied by a wife, so it could be all right. But might his heart still be elsewhere? And, even if his affections were not otherwise engaged, would he love Arianllyn as she did him, or would he regret the end her new feelings put to their hitherto easy companionship?

Her mother had asked when she had started to feel differently about him. She thought hard, trying to pinpoint the moment she first became aware of her desire. It was strange, but it had happened fairly recently, as if the memories she had about him transfigured overnight to acquire new meanings.

She found this to be the case with one such memory she had of the day before he left on his wanderings. They had both been sitting outside, near the castle gates, while he described his plans. He had seemed embarrassed to tell her he hoped to learn how to weave. He apparently thought she would find it presumptuous that he aspired to enter a field in which she was so skilled. She had assured him she had no such feelings, and had indeed given him a few tips for beginners at the loom. When she had finished several children from the castle came up, and asked Adaon and Arianllyn if they could watch their youngest sister and brother for a while. "They're too little to keep up with us," they'd explained. And so the two young people found themselves looking after the four-year-old twins Delyth and Derfel, who kept them quite busy. Arianllyn suspected that the twins were too active for their brothers and sisters to keep up with _them_ rather than the other way around. Arianllyn and Adaon found themselves running almost the entire time both after and with the small bundles of energy, playing hide and go seek and other childhood games they had neither of them engaged in for years. Arianllyn had been glad to see Adaon enjoying himself. She had worried about him after he returned from fighting with Lord Gwydion. Unusually, he had not confided everything to her about his experiences, but she knew that, despite his own bravery and skill in battle, he had deeply regretted the violence. She also knew, from a few things he had hesitantly said, that he had seen unimaginable horrors the Huntsmen had perpetrated in a village they despoiled. These horrors, she gathered, included the slaughter of children. When Delyth—her black curls flying—first ran toward him, Arianllyn saw a spasm cross Adaon's face, as if the little girl recalled to him the ghastly fate of other less fortunate children. But luckily he had not had time to brood. The two children left them not a quiet moment until their grateful brothers and sisters reappeared, and, well before this happened, Adaon's natural capacity for joy had reasserted itself.

Indeed, the memory of one particularly joyful moment proved instrumental in transforming Arianllyn's feelings for Adaon from friendship into love. At one point, Delyth—who had taken quite a liking to him—begged Adaon to pick her up and spin her around in the wild fashion so favored by small children who, unlike adults, love to get dizzy. And so he had spun her around while she shrieked with glee. The picture that lodged in Arianllyn's mind was of Adaon holding the child, his black-haired head thrown back, laughing with pure pleasure. During his absence Arianllyn had carried that memory with her, enjoying it, but not feeling until one morning some months before the currents of love it now inspired. After the floodgates of that love had opened, she could of course not help dreaming of how she and Adaon would play thus with their own children. Admittedly, she also had daydreams about their engaging in activities from which children would be banished. A painful yet delightful fever wrapped Arianllyn's body when she had such thoughts, and she did not know whether to indulge them or chase them away until Adaon came back and she could discover if she had any chance of turning them into reality.

So—she asked the same question her mother had earlier that morning—when would Adaon arrive at Caer Dathyl, anyway?

_A note: One of my major puzzles about Prydain concerns the absence of religion in the chronicles. On one level, this is completely understandable, as the Christian faith of western Europe would not be available to this alternate medieval universe. And I am certain, moreover, that Lloyd Alexander avoided any association of his characters with a specific dogma in order to make the series accessible to children (and adults) of all religious backgrounds. Nonetheless, I cannot think of a culture that completely avoids belief in a deity, and so, in Taliesin's blessing on his departing son, I have alluded to Celtic sun worship (a symbolism, by the way, inherent in the golden sunburst of the House of Don). Please note I do not thus mean to make our characters Druids in any classic sense. I'm imagining a more generalized form of spirituality, a belief in what the folks in AA call a "higher power." Oh, and I did try to avoid making Taliesin's words sound like "may the force be with you"—though I'm not sure I entirely succeeded._


	3. Return

Ch. 3: Return

Plucking a few chords on his harp, Taliesin laid the instrument on the table and picked up his quill to mark changes on the parchment before him. It was several days after his talk with Arianwen, and he was composing a poem while setting it to music. So intense was his concentration that he started upon hearing a familiar voice from the doorway.

"Father?"

On the threshold stood a bearded man wrapped in a travel-stained cloak. Throwing down his pen, Taliesin reached him in several strides.

"Adaon!" The two embraced, laughing. Taliesin finally detached himself and, placing his hands on his son's shoulders, held him at arm's length to see him better.

"Don't look too closely," begged Adaon, smiling. "And do not fear: I plan to get rid of this thing"—he touched the beard—"as soon as possible. It was, however, difficult to shave on the road. I would also welcome a bath." He wrinkled his nose slightly. "I washed as best I could in streams, but there is only so much one can do to keep clean that way."

Some time later Adaon emerged from the luxury of a warm bath and shave feeling considerably refreshed. While he had tried not to be taken aback by the beard—after all a common style for men—Taliesin was nonetheless relieved to see once more the sensitive planes of his son's face. Adaon, meanwhile, thanked his father for lending him some clothes so the ones he brought back could be washed and mended.

"My things were getting a bit threadbare," Adaon admitted, "although this, being new, is in good repair." He reached into his pack and held up a gray cloak edged with an intricately patterned border. Lifting out a similar garment in green, he handed it to his father. "This one is for you."

"Did you weave these yourself?" Taliesin asked admiringly. Seeing his son nod, he said, "Arianllyn will be excited to see what you have learned."

He had mentioned her without thinking, not as a ploy to bring the young woman to Adaon's attention but because it was natural to speak about her in connection with weaving. The effect of his comment upon Adaon, though, relieved Taliesin's suspense regarding his son's feelings about Arianllyn. Upon hearing her name, the young man's countenance became as radiant as hers had been upon hearing of his return. Swiftly, though, anxiety chased joy from his face. "How is Arianllyn?" Adaon breathed. "Is she well? Is she—" He broke off.

"Yes?" Taliesin prompted, trying not to sound too interested.

"Is she—I mean, has she had any suitors while I've been gone?" Taliesin was not used to Adaon stumbling over his words, but he now knew the reason for his son's awkwardness.

"She has had suitors," Taliesin admitted, adding quickly upon seeing Adaon pale, "though she's sent them all packing." He smiled. "In the gentlest of manners, of course."

Relief flooded Adaon's face. "Father, do you think I could—" His words were interrupted by a knock at the door. A servant entered, handing a sheet of parchment to Taliesin, who upon scanning it, announced, "News travels fast. The High King and Prince Gwydion have heard of your return and desire us to sit with them at the king's table tonight, as they wish to hear more of your travels. King Math also says"—he peered closely at the old man's writing—"that he is sending several tailors with some clothes they can alter at short notice for you to wear this evening. I suppose," he glanced down at his own plain garb, "I had better change into something more festive too. Lord Gwydion can rarely be bothered to wear rich attire, but the High King does have a fondness for it on special occasions. Apparently he considers this one of them."

Emotions clashed on Adaon's face. He looked disappointed—Taliesin suspected he had wanted to see Arianllyn immediately—though at the same time amazed that his homecoming would earn an invitation to the High King's table.

There is, in any event, no quarrelling with royalty. And, since the tailors were at the door almost before the messenger who bore the dinner invitation had left, Adaon had little opportunity to see anyone before evening. Feeling conspiratorial, Taliesin left the chamber to send a note to Arianwen informing her of Adaon's return and warning her that, due to the dinner with the High King, he probably would not be able to visit properly with Arianllyn until the morrow. Then, replacing his gray jacket with one of green velvet, Taliesin returned to the unusual sight of his son being fitted with fine clothes. It was not that Adaon possessed nothing beyond the plain garb favored by himself and his father, but he certainly had never had occasion to wear anything so impressive as the garments being prepared for him. When the tailors had completed their work, Taliesin was stunned by the contrast between the traveler wrapped in a dusty, stained cloak he had seen only that morning and the youth clad like a prince who now stood before him. Tastefully understated rather than ostentatious, the new jacket of deep blue cloth, shot with gold thread, brilliantly complemented Adaon's black hair and gray eyes. Taliesin looked forward to seeing Arianllyn's face when she laid eyes on his son.

Indeed, when father and son entered the Great Hall that evening, Adaon scanned the room as if searching for one particular face. He was slow in finding it, because so many people waved him over to welcome him back. Though obviously glad to see them, Adaon just as obviously strove to contain his impatience at the delay. Finally, he spotted the person he was looking for, and rushed to her side.

"Arianllyn!" Although the young woman was not as richly dressed as Adaon, she had taken greater pains than usual with her attire. Her hair was arranged in a more elaborate style than her characteristic braid, and the gown she wore, though deceptively simple, was a stellar example of her work at the loom. Arianllyn had a trick of interweaving many-colored threads so that cloth would appear a solid color when seen from one angle, but upon being viewed from another would shift into the iridescence of a rainbow. More than once Taliesin wondered if she had, on her own, rediscovered the secret skills of weavers that Arawn had stolen long ago. At any rate, when she leaned forward in her seat to greet Adaon, the green hue of her gown, which reminded Taliesin of herbs in a spring garden, glowed with glittering strands of blues and purples. The gaze—as shining as her garment—which she bestowed on the young man was every bit as warm as that he turned delightedly on her. Sitting next to Arianllyn, Arianwen, who had apparently noticed the look on Adaon's face, gave Taliesin a sunny smile of triumph over her daughter's head. Taliesin grinned.

Adaon had, however, only a moment to assure Arianllyn he would see her as soon as he could before proceeding to the head of the table where sat the High King and Prince Gwydion. Over the course of the dinner Taliesin had to jump into the conversation himself at several points so that Adaon could eat, because otherwise the young man would have been kept talking the entire time. One of the things Taliesin admired most about the aged King Math was his concern about the well-being of his humblest subjects, and the white-bearded ruler peppered Adaon with questions about the living conditions of the folk at whose sides he had labored on his travels. As he listened, Taliesin marvelled at all his son had accomplished, and noted with approval the humility with which he spoke of the hosts who had taken him in and taught him their crafts. While they were beneath him in birth, he evidently considered them not only his equals but, in many ways, his superiors. Adaon described the courage and determination with which the farmers of Prydain brought forth harvests when faced with daunting obstacles—the loss of the skills Arawn had stolen from them as well as the often arid soil which needed much coaxing to support crops. In the Free Commots, at least, war did not devastate the earth as much as it did in the rest of Prydain, where the frequent tussels of cantrev lords laid waste to all in their path. Yet even in the Commots bands of roving outlaws raided crops and villages. "If only a more secure peace came to this land," Adaon said, "we could do much to prevent the hunger and despair that spur such violence, as well as bring forth a richer harvest."

As Adaon spoke, Taliesin became aware of Lord Gwydion watching his son closely. Typically, the Prince of Don was more sparing of words than his voluble uncle. Yet the intensity with which he regarded Adaon was eloquent, if unsettling. Something like sorrow or even remorse stirred in the prince's green-flecked eyes, as if, even as he assessed the young man's abilities, he regretted his need to do so. Icy needles of fear chased up Taliesin's spine just as sleet drives against windows on a stormy night. Whether these shivers of unrest were caused by his poet's sensitivity to the emotions around him, or to his latent magic abilities, Taliesin could not tell. All he knew was that his chest tightened as he realized that, unless he were much mistaken, Gwydion would soon ask Adaon to fight for him again. He recalled Adaon's account of Gwydion's words before he left on his travels: "I wasn't sure if he'd need me again anytime soon. He's not sure either, but he wants me to do first what I have to." Recently, there had been signs that Arawn was finally flexing his muscles, drawing to him new adherents among the cantrev lords who might help escalate the conflict between Annuvin and the rest of Prydain. Rumors abounded of a terrifying war leader who might be the Death Lord's special champion. Given the mounting tensions, it was only too likely that Adaon would once again be called upon to join Gwydion's battle host.

Taliesin tried not to let his dismay show. He had, after all, to have expected this to happen, given the warrior culture he inhabited and its current emergencies. Yet like his son he yearned for peace, which in addition to other blessings would put an end to the constant worry that a male child would not survive his youth but fall, untimely, in battle. Sighing to himself, the Chief Bard moved disquiet to the back of his mind. Better by far to concentrate on the joy at hand than to fear the ever-uncertain future.

Even as he steeled himself to look as if nothing was bothering him, however, he heard something that caused him to smile without effort. The High King was thanking Adaon not only for the information he had imparted but for his hardihood in undertaking so ambitious and grueling a quest to begin with.

"You have done well, Son of Taliesin," Math said approvingly. He smiled. "And, I understand that during these two years you have been without a horse?"

Looking mildly surprised at this turn in the conversation, Adaon replied, "Indeed, sire, it would not have been easy for me to take a horse to some places I travelled. I would not," he laughed, "have relished bringing one on board a fishing vessel!"

"As I suspected," replied Math. "Then, now that you no longer have to concern yourself with boarding a horse on a ship, you will, I hope, do me the favor of allowing me to remedy your lack of a mount. I have a bay mare named Lluagor, a swift and proud animal bred of my own best steeds. She is yours."

Adaon rose and bowed deeply to the king. "Sire, I cannot thank you enough—"

"Except by enjoying my gift," Math finished for him. "Tomorrow go to my stables. A groom will introduce you two."

"And now," he continued, "before you leave us tonight, tell me something else. Did you have a harp with you on your travels? It is not," he said, smiling, "as if I am about to gift you with an instrument as well as a horse. Harps are your father's domain! But I wondered if you had a chance to compose any new songs on your travels. I understand that you had been writing some fine ones before you left."

"I did not have a harp with me," said Adaon, "though I was able to borrow one now and again. And, yes, I did write new songs, although without my own harp I had not as much chance to perfect them as I would have liked."

"Would you share one of them with us now?" asked the king. Adaon nodded. Taliesin quickly sent a servant to fetch his own harp from his chambers, marveling all the while at his son's lack of self-consciousness. Were the king to have asked him, at Adaon's age, to perform a song he had not been able to practice much he would have been rather nervous. If such was his feeling, though, Adaon hid it admirably. When the servant handed him the instrument, he stepped to the floor in front of the High King, tuned the harp, and brought it to his shoulder, closing his eyes as he did so. Irresistibly, Taliesin was reminded of his mother Cerys at her bardic exams, preparing to perform a song that stunned the Council of Bards with its beauty. Indeed, whenever he watched Adaon play the harp Taliesin most strongly perceived his resemblance to his mother. With his black hair and gray eyes, Adaon looked more obviously like his father (whose hair had been dark in his youth) than like Cerys, who had had light brown hair and gray-green eyes. Yet as Adaon sang Taliesin saw, as if in a shifting mirror, the lines of Cerys's face blending with that of her son.

The song that Adaon performed in the hushed Great Hall also reminded Taliesin of the composition Cerys sang at her exams, except that hers had been sad—a lament of a queen mourning her lost lover—and Adaon's was joyful, not a lay of battle or a song about anything at all except the beauty of the world. Yet, just as Cerys's voice and the tones of her harp had mingled so as to melt the hearer's heart, so too did Adaon's song and the vibrating chords soar as one in the lofty hall. When he had finished, there was a moment of silence before applause broke out. Upon hearing it, Adaon looked briefly embarrassed for the first time. Then, returning the harp to his father, he bowed to the royal family and left the Great Hall. On his way out, he stopped by Arianllyn, who, when Taliesin had glanced at her during Adaon's song, had looked as if she could scarce contain her love and pride. Now she beamed as Adaon invited her to come to the paddock the next morning to see Lluagor with him. Arianwen tried, and failed, not to look too smug at this turn of events.

The next morning Taliesin and Adaon arrived at the stables first and exclaimed with delight over the beautiful, and imposingly noble, bay mare. She took at once to Adaon, who led her out to the nearby paddock and, saddling her, rode its circuit a few times for them to get used to each other. Much as he admired his son's exceptional maturity and wisdom, Taliesin was glad to see Adaon as aglow as any youth with boyish enthusiasm over his new prize. As his son dismounted and led Lluagor to the paddock fence to tell his father excitedly how marvelous she was, Taliesin saw Arianllyn approaching and tactfully absented himself, saying he would come back in an hour or two to remind the young people of the midday meal. Somehow, he thought, they were not likely to be too concerned with such matters themselves.

As Taliesin left, Arianllyn approached Adaon smiling. Since the previous evening—including some hours in the night when she had been too excited to sleep—she hoped she had not misinterpreted the look on Adaon's face when he saw her again.. To behold him before her now, after his long absence, was like a dream—although thinking of dreams made her blush when she remembered the ones she had recently been having. It seemed even more unreal when Adaon invited her to ride behind him on Lluagor as they cantered around the paddock.

Yes, thought Arianllyn, this is unreal and real at the same time. Unreal, because it's marvelous after so long a separation to sit thus, spanning the waist of one's beloved; real, because fantasies don't feel so solid as this. There is, after all, something undeniably corporeal about a waist—even the waist of a lean person like Adaon.

Yet, while there are great pleasures riding behind one's beloved, there are drawbacks as well. For one thing, since one can only stare at his back one has limited opportunities for gauging his expression. Being unable to see Adaon's face made Arianllyn uncertain whether she dared clasp his waist more tightly or even lay her head against his shoulder. Were he not to feel about her as she did about him he could find such attentions disconcerting. So she contented herself—and there are less satisfying experiences—with drinking in the soft spring air while she gazed at his cloak.

This last activity, however, turned out to be more interesting than she could have imagined. When they dismounted, Arianllyn questioned him about the garment.

"Did you weave this yourself?" she asked.

"Yes," Adaon admitted, "though it is not nearly so good as anything you would do."

"It's not bad at all," Arianllyn said encouragingly. Holding her breath as she dared an intimate gesture, she leaned forward and traced with her finger the pattern of the border around his collar. "I like what you did here," she said, "it's lovely, and not at all the sort of thing that's easy for a beginner."

He was about to reply when a young man hailed Arianllyn as he strode toward the paddock.

He was tall, with a thin, sensitive face, startlingly blue eyes, and longish brown hair that, at the moment, looked interestingly windswept. As he approached Adaon and Arianllyn, his smile faltered as he glanced from one to the other.

"Hello, Arianllyn," he said a bit stiffly.

"Hello, Llawdden," she replied with a small smile. The two young men gazed warily at each other over Arianllyn's head. In the paddock behind them, Lluagor serenely cropped the grass.

"Greetings, Llawdden," said Adaon, without, however, his usual warmth. As if noting this, he asked more heartily "How are you? It's good to see you again."

Llawdden looked as if he were not at all sure he could say the same about Adaon. "Welcome back," he finally brought out. Then, turning to Arianllyn, he said, "I hoped I could accompany you on a walk in the gardens this afternoon."

She smiled a bit wearily. "That's a lovely idea, Llawdden, but I am not sure I have time today." She waited for him to take the hint and leave. She was not looking at Adaon, though if she had she might have been reassured about his feelings for her. He seemed distinctly unenthralled by Llawdden's proposal.

"Well," Llawdden finally said, "I hope we can get a walk in soon. Remember, I really would appreciate it if you could quiz me again about those dratted runes." He noted Adaon's blank stare and explained. "I've asked Arianllyn to help me prepare for my bardic exams, which I'm taking in about a month. She's been very kind in helping me out with the runes, as well as with memorizing those pages of dates." He considered a moment and then asked, "Is that why you've come home, Adaon? To take your examinations?"

Adaon gave the smallest of sighs. "No, Llawdden," he replied, "not yet. I still have things I hope to learn."

Llawdden looked puzzled. He seemed suddenly not so much a potential rival as a bewildered friend. "I don't understand. You can't fear that your father would be harder on you so that people would think he was being fair, do you? I'm sure he wouldn't—"

"No," said Adaon, patiently. "I don't think that. I just feel I need to wait."

Llawdden looked politely uncomprehending. "Well," he said, "I'd better be off now. Arianllyn, I truly could use your help soon—I'm getting jumpy, you know, now that the exams are fast approaching." He bowed to her and strode off.

There was a moment's awkward silence. Finally, Adaon spoke.

"You have an admirer." Belatedly, he seemed to realize he was frowning and tried to look as if he were teasing her, as they been wont to do before his departure.

"Yes," said Arianllyn, "he _is_ a bit of a pest. Oh, he's very nice and all, but he can't take a hint. It's not that he isn't clever—quite the opposite—but he's tone-deaf when it comes to me. He begged me to help him with his exams—because I know so much,he says—and now I'm not sure how to ask him to stop seeing me. If I do it before his exams, I'm afraid he'll fall apart altogether. He really has been getting terribly nervous."

"Certainly, though, in all this time," Adaon asked, striving for a light tone,"you have had other admirers as well?"

Arianllyn looked at him sharply. "And you?" she asked. "What about you? In all your travels was there no one you were taken with?"

Adaon was about to speak when Taliesin came up. Seeing the tense glances passing between the young people, he looked as if he regretted his timing. "I thought you two might be hungry by now," he explained apologetically.

Arianllyn thanked him but excused herself. "I need to go back to the castle." She walked away swiftly. Taliesin tried not to look too curious about what had happened. He helped Adaon lead Lluagor back to the stables, noting his son's preoccupied air. As they walked back to the castle, Adaon questioned him.

"So," he asked, "is it true that Llawdden will be taking his bardic exams shortly? He seems to be preparing for them with Arianllyn."

Taliesin looked wary, as if he realized they were treading on several types of shaky ground. "Yes," he said quietly, "Llawdden has been studying with Arianllyn, though I gather he was the one who asked her, not the other way around. And he will be taking his examinations in a month. I shall be grateful," he admitted wryly, "for him to have them over with. I'm tired of him scuttling away like a frightened rabbit every time he sees me. He apparently thinks I am going to eat him alive when he appears before the council. Really, I'm sure he'll do quite well."

Adaon gave a forced laugh. "What, Father," he said, "are you neglecting an opportunity to urge me to take my own bardic exams?"

Taliesin halted, so that Adaon was obliged to stop too. "Adaon!" His voice was reproachful. "I said nothing!"

Adaon closed his eyes a moment and, when he opened them, looked both contrite and embarrassed. "I beg your pardon," he murmured. "I am not sure what came over me."

Ah, thought Taliesin, but I am. You're comparing yourself with a rival for Arianllyn's affections—and one, moreover, about to do something I would love you to do.

Aloud he said, "Think nothing of it. Shall we get something to eat?"

Reaching her chamber in the castle, Arianllyn only refrained from slamming the door with difficulty. Her mother, fortunately, was not in their rooms at the moment. Arianllyn would not have welcomed maternal fussing over her flustered state.

What, precisely, had gone wrong? She and Adaon had been having a wonderful time riding Lluagor, and then everything had turned sour. It hadn't helped that Llawdden had barged in, paying unwanted attentions to her as usual. Of course, if Adaon had been jealous of the young man, that would be a good sign. But did Adaon care about her in that way? His face had been so alight with joy when he saw her yesterday evening; but then Adaon naturally was a joyful person. And they had always been close—in that brother and sister way, of course. Although Adaon had seemed a bit put out by Llawdden's interest in her, he had gone on to tease her about her admirers in that old friendly tone they had so often used with each other in the past. Really, it was all so confusing.

Racking her brains to think how she could find out for certain what Adaon felt about her, Arianllyn remembered what she had heard about his mother Cerys. In an attempt to gauge his feelings regarding herself, Cerys had asked Taliesin for extra langage lessons. Then, when she realized he was too honorable to reveal his love while she was under his tutelage, she had ended the instruction and immediately made known her own desire. For a woman to take the initiative in such matters was highly unconventional, even shocking. Needless to say, Arianllyn had no patience with such old-fashioned attitudes. But she did have to admire Cerys's nerve in risking rejection by revealing her own love before she could be fully certain of Taliesin's.

It would appear, Arianllyn thought, that she had to take a leaf out of Cerys's book. Not to ask Adaon for lessons in anything—nor to offer him any, which given her expertise in a field he was seeking to learn would make more sense. She smiled at the image of her instructing Adaon at the loom. Given the way she felt at the moment, she would have much ado to keep from rapping his knuckles with her distaff. No, what she would have to do was to speak first—and risk the consequences. She might feel a fool if Adaon had never really moved beyond brother and sister love, but at least she would know where she stood.

Hmm, mused Arianllyn, how to manage this? She would not dine tonight in the Great Hall—there wasn't any privacy there anyway—but with her mother in their chambers. If Arianwen fussed over why Arianllyn should choose to absent herself from a space inhabited by Adaon, there was no harm filling her in on the plan. Arianwen would relish such scheming, anyway. Yes, Arianllyn would tell her mother she meant to give Adaon something to puzzle over. If he were genuinely in love with her he would worry about the meaning of her absence and be all the more likely to reveal his feelings when they next met. Then, the following morning, Arianllyn would pay him a little visit. She marvelled at her matter-of-fact unscrupulousness. It was amazing how easy it was to leave the man she adored cooling his heels while she waited for the perfect moment to spring upon him the news of her love.

Gwydion Prince of Don saw Adaon and his father—both in their usual plain attire—enter the Great Hall for dinner that evening. When the young man had seated himself his eyes travelled over the faces in the room, a small crease of worry or concern between his brows. Gwydion smiled. Having noticed him speaking to Arianllyn the evening before, he had a notion whom Adaon was seeking. Then, thinking of the visit he would pay after dinner to Taliesin's son, Gwydion sighed. He hated what he had to do.

When he was admitted later that evening to Taliesin's chambers—father and son bowing as he entered—he sensed immediately both men knew why he had come. Taliesin's normally serene expression was oddly closed, as if he were striving to contain his emotions. Meanwhile, regarding his prince all the while with his clear gray eyes—so like his father's—Adaon sank to one knee.

"I am at your command," he smiled. "Where are we going?"

Gwydion raised the young man and steered both father and son toward the table in the center of the room. When they had all seated themselves—Taliesin still looking grave—Gwydion filled them in.

"You are probably aware—at least you are, Taliesin, since you have not been traveling like your son—that in the last few months there have been strange disturbances, like embers that fan into flame, in parts of Prydain. All these years, of course, Arawn has not been twiddling his thumbs; there have been the attacks by Cauldron-Born or Huntsmen, the cases of cantrev lords seduced by the Death-Lord's promises, like the one Adaon fought with me several years ago. Yet—for all the tragic havoc they have wreaked—these have been relatively isolated strikes. But now we hear of larger, more vicious attacks, the more puzzling because the warriors who perpetrate them have no obvious leader. Nor are there clear signs the Huntsmen or Cauldron-Born are involved."

"We will, of course," Gwydion continued, "need to find out who is behind all this. In the meanwhile, though, villages and cantrevs require protection. I am fortunate in my allies: King Morgant of Madoc and King Smoit of cantrev Cadiffor have both sworn to aid me. I hope to call, too, on another gallant friend." He smiled. "That is, if I can pin him down. He spends much of the year as a wandering bard, although I fear"—he turned to Taliesin—"he did not pass his examinations some years back. His tongue has a tendency to run away with him—though it is no exaggeration to say his courage is of the highest."

"Ah," Taliesin murmured, a smile lighting his hitherto somber face, "Fflewddur Fflam, is it not?"

"Indeed it is," replied Gwydion, "though I hope I have not done him a bad turn in telling you he is living like a bard without actually being one."

"What was that, Lord Gwydion?" asked Taliesin. "I believe my ears are not what they used to be. I did not hear a word you just said." Then, when Gwydion and Adaon had laughed, he went on, "Not as if I can stop people who own harps from wandering around playing them. Even if they are somewhat unusual harps," he added, more to himself.

As Gwydion rose to leave, he said to Adaon, "We leave for the west of here in several days. I am truly sorry to cut short your homecoming." He paused, then looked intently at the young man. "Perhaps," he went on softly, "there is business you should attend to before you leave. I may not seem best suited to offer advice in such matters. But believe me when I say one should never lose a chance to speak one's truest feelings."

After the Prince of Don had left, Taliesin dared not look at Adaon. True, he hoped to speak of Arianllyn with his son—and quickly—but he hoped not to have to raise the matter himself. If only we did not muffle our desires with so many layers of self-doubt, he thought. Well, maybe Adaon had finally gotten the point.

The next morning Adaon accompanied his father to the Hall of Lore and sat opposite him, as—long ago—he had been wont to do for lessons. After Lord Gwydion had left the night before, Adaon had said nothing other than urging his father not to worry overmuch about him once he left with the prince. Now, the young man seemed on the verge of speaking. Finally, he did.

"Father, may I ask your advice . . . " But before he could finish came a knock at the door. Arianllyn entered, looking pale but determined. She twisted her clasped hands in front of her, then took a deep breath.

"Good morning," she announced. "Taliesin, I hope you will excuse me if I borrow your son for a while. Adaon," she said firmly, "please come to the garden with me." She took the young man by the hand and led him out the door without a word. Adaon looked more dazed than Taliesin had ever seen him.

What was it, thought Taliesin, shaking his head after the young people had left, that made the men of this household—brilliant though they were—need their women to take them in hand to show them the truth of their own hearts?

Smiling, he cast about for something to pretend to do while he waited for Adaon and Arianllyn's return.

Arianllyn did not halt until she came to a bench in the garden near the herb patch where, long ago, she and Adaon had weeded on a summer's day as he had told her about his mother's death. She remembered how, the sad talk over, they had gone on to hope their parents would fall in love. While those wedding plans had not worked out, Arianllyn thought, maybe the ones she now cherished would.

She motioned Adaon to sit on the bench. Then, she knelt in front of him—he not so much dazed now as devouring her with his eyes—and spoke.

"Adaon." She took another breath. "I need to let you know how I feel about you. I'm not sure if you feel the same about me—I know we always thought of ourselves as brother and sister, or as friends—but now—"

She stopped, winded. Adaon had launched himself from the bench and flung his arms around her. After she regained her breath, she gently released herself enough to see his face. What it told her made her very happy indeed.

"Arianllyn," Adaon murmured, catching her again in his arms, "I have been such a _fool."_

He laid much emphasis on the last word, though it came out a bit muffled as his face was buried in her hair. Then, he took her hand and, rising from the ground where they had both been kneeling, settled them on the bench.

"I only realized I loved you—not in a brother and sister way, I mean—during this past year," he explained. "I don't know why I had not known it before. I think I loved you that way all along—"

"As I did you," said Arianllyn happily. "Look, let's be easy on ourselves, shall we? We started as dear friends, and we still are. That's the best kind of love, when it's added to the kind we feel now."

"Well," said Adaon, "you needed to take the first step, just as mother did with my father. I don't know what it is with us men." He smilingly shook his head. "But I hope you will let me be first in one thing, at least."

He leaned forward and kissed her. A long moment later, Arianllyn said, "Mmm. I liked that. Can we do it again?"

Later that evening, four happy people gathered for a private supper in Taliesin's chambers. Arianwen and Taliesin beamed at the young people. Arianllyn and Adaon beamed at each other.

Their happiness was not perfect, of course, as is nothing in this world, and certainly not in Prydain at that moment. Before dinner, Adaon and Taliesin had gently informed Arianllyn and Arianwen of Adaon's imminent departure to fight with Lord Gwydion. And thus the many kinds of love that filled the room that evening—of lovers, of parents, of friends—were the more intense because of impending danger. Yet each person in the room was content to live in that moment alone. So they banished fear, and focused on joy instead.

There was a certain amount of story-telling—the story Arianwen and Taliesin told of their hopes that Adaon and Arianllyn would wed, the parents' story (garnering rueful laughs from the young people) of how they discovered their children's hopes for their own marriage. Adaon and Arianllyn each took turns telling how they had finally realized they were in love. They all pitied Llawdden.

"When should we tell him?" Arianllyn worried. "I'm afraid he really will fall apart. Oh well—we can't have him courting me now, can we? I'll just try to let him down gently."

"And," she added, "I do hope he can find someone else to study with."

Everyone wondered when the marriage would take place.

"It sounds," Adaon said slowly, "as if Lord Gwydion intends to keep me quite busy for this next year or so. And, I must confess I had wanted to travel a bit more—closer to home, though," he continued, seeing the women's faces. "I'll have to fit everything in around service with Lord Gwydion. And I would give up my plans to travel, save that they are not selfish ones—I'm not so much hoping to learn things as to use my knowledge to help others. Several nearby cantrevs have a history of bad crops, and I learned some skills in the commots that could be of assistance. Perhaps," he turned to Arianllyn, "we could do such work together, after we were wed. That is, if you wouldn't mind the hardship."

"As long as I was with you, I wouldn't," laughed Arianllyn. "But, while I'm waiting for you to get back from fighting, I have things to do here, too. I have decided," she announced, "to study for my bardic exams. That should keep me busy for a while, at least."

The others expressed their pride and delight at her resolution.

"Excellent," Taliesin declared, "we need more women like you! Alas, since my wife's time few have presented themselves for initiation."

"Well," said Arianllyn, "I realized, you know, when I was tutoring Llawdden how much _I_ knew. Time to do something about it."

"Hmm," mused Arianwen, a mischievous light in her blue eyes. "Are you listening, Adaon? Arianllyn might beat you to the council hall if you don't watch out!"

"So she might," laughed Adaon, who seemed for once to enjoy comments about the exams. "She beat me to declaring her love—why not to that, too?"

"Don't worry!" Arianllyn smiled, turning to Taliesin, "when I'm ready, I may just drag him along with me!"

And once again they all laughed, their faces lit by the glowing candles on the table.

Epilogue: A Flame in the Wind

In years to come—after Adaon met his death in the quest to destroy Arawn's enchanted cauldron—the three people who shared dinner with him that night would recall the flickering candlelight, and think it the fittest emblem of their happiness over the marriage that was never to be. Like such fugitive perfection, our lives are a flame that all too quickly burns out. And yet it is not in shared brevity alone that the span of mortal years is like a candle. At a very few moments in our lives, our gentlest and fiercest joys draw a magic circle that, like the taper's glow, keeps at bay the great darkness pressing around us. True, whenever they looked back on that evening Arianllyn, Taliesin, and Arianwen wept over its lost promise. But even as they did so they remembered Adaon, and within them the light of life and love would flare up again, and they would shield its wavering flame from the wind with their sheltering hands.


End file.
